ASEBL Journal – Volume 11 Issue 1, January 2015
The consequences of the feud for the rival houses now affect the state, as embodied by
the Prince and his kinsmen. Though the Prince could lawfully demand the lives of
both Montague and Capulet (1.1.95; 1.2.1-3), he is instead merciful; the fee for their
crimes will be paid in money, for the benefit of the city, rather than in blood, which
would satisfy only his personal desire for revenge – putting into sharp contrast the
state and kinship-based models of society.
“A plague o’ both your houses”
Mercutio’s resonating curse serves as a prelude to the turning point of the play (Romeo’s slaying of Tybalt; see below), and is taken by Raymond Utterback (1973) to be
the cause of its remaining events (107). While the remainder of the events do stem
from Mercutio’s death, they nevertheless fit within the larger framework of the traditional feud (the actions of ancestral Montague and Capulet and their descendants) that
serves as the ultimate cause of all of the negative consequences in the play. At this
point the play undergoes a tonal change, as Jay Halio (1998) notes: “What seemed to
be a largely comic invention turns at that point to tragedy” (21). However, given the
content of the Prologue, the brawling in the opening scene, Tybalt’s attitude at the
Capulet party, Juliet’s concern about Romeo’s safety whilst on Capulet grounds, and
Benvolio’s words of caution (“the day is hot”), it seems the audience is never far removed by means of “comic invention” from the tragedy that inevitably awaits its
characters. Thus, we agree with Halio that “Overarching all the action of the play, and
in one sense its alternative main plot, is the feud between the rival families” (p. 28,
emphasis added), but qualify this agreement by emphasizing that so intertwined is the
feud with the love story that it is nonsensical to see them as alternatives. Mercutio’s
death and curse are likewise inseparable from the feud, without which he would not
have provoked Tybalt (who was perpetuating the feud in seeking Romeo), in defense
of his friend and fellow citizen.
The purpose of the “infectious pestilence,” as